LudumData

Piranha Frenzy by mremmele

[raw]
made by mremmele for Ludum Dare 57 (JAM)

"Are we the baddies?" asked literally no piranha ever. There's no such thing as a "bad guy" in the food chain. Yeah, you got it right – you play as a piranha, and your task is to grow a school and devour everything in the ocean's DEPTHs.

Use WASD or arrows to navigate and hit the score!

Screenshots

2025-04-07 21.12.46.jpg

2025-04-07 21.12.53.jpg

Possible Challenges

Try to get through without dying!

Dev Notes

Mobile version included! You can play on your phone too. To get the best experience on the phone, use horizontal position.

I used my own game engine, Dacha and the editor for this game engine (Dacha Workbench).

I used Pixquare to draw on iPad with a pencil. Overall, the game was built on Javascript + WebGL, with the help of three.js and my own code.

Link https://ludum-dare-57.netlify.app/
Link https://github.com/michailRemmele/ludum-dare-57
Engine https://github.com/michailRemmele/dacha
Link https://github.com/michailRemmele/dacha-workbench
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/piranha-frenzy

Ratings

Overall 268th 3.75⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Fun 81th 4⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 568th 3.058⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Theme 566th 3.455⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 175th 4.193⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Humor 345th 3.039⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Mood 454th 3.535⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Given 38🗳️ 62🗨️

Feedback

karbirus
07. Apr 2025 · 23:33 UTC
fun game! I played a couple of rounds trying to go further in the game :D
cdupe
08. Apr 2025 · 03:23 UTC
You know it's a good game when you catch yourself strategizing how you're going to beat the first jellyfish without losing a fish next time! It was a little off-putting when my piranhas died from going off the edge of the screen, though.
🎤 mremmele
08. Apr 2025 · 07:59 UTC
@cdupe Yeah, sorry for the killing borders. It was just easier to implement at the beginning and later I didn't find the time to change it.
MysteriousJuice
08. Apr 2025 · 08:31 UTC
What a polished and fun game, loved the retro feel. I think a bit more control over the flock (like with WASD movement instead of mouse) would have been nice, but it makes sense that a flock is not so easy to maneuver. Huge respect that you did all of this with your own engine! I will look into your repo when I find some time.
Kotolazer
08. Apr 2025 · 10:51 UTC
I really enjoyed it. The game has a very good balance, you can't just take and beat everyone
Elian Geser
08. Apr 2025 · 10:53 UTC
Very cool game. I like that you made it work for touch as well! Would have been cool if i also could play with keyboard tho. But I guess the mouse did the trick anyway. Good job, cool submission!
erebrus
08. Apr 2025 · 10:53 UTC
It has more depth than what I was expecting at first. Congrats
Stratcat66
08. Apr 2025 · 10:58 UTC
I managed to get to the pink second level (just to die from an armada of jelly fishes).

The has a nice core loop, but what I really like are the thoughts that went into it:
- The game has a nice difficulty curve (which is not easy to manage)
- The game introduces you with easy enemies in the beginning to its concepts
- Additional piranhas as visual life points and damage (at least I think so?)
Thank you for your game!
Tugaryn
08. Apr 2025 · 10:59 UTC
Like this, didn't have enough tutorials
because it took me only the second time to decide to eat the fish.
I thought they'd do damage.
Well done!
Jack Turpitt
08. Apr 2025 · 11:01 UTC
This is a game-ass game! The pixel art is gorgeous with very smooth animation, and the music is a bop. I love how the extra piranhas organize themselves into a school as you pick them up. How they act as both your health bar and your attack strength without requiring extra UI is very clever. The game was nice and challenging and reveals extra depth as you get deeper. Awesome that you made it in your own engine too! Great entry, thanks for making it!

Our entry is here if you want to check it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/eurydive
Aurelius
08. Apr 2025 · 11:11 UTC
Neat game, especially the graphics. Liked the color balance a lot. Building your own engine is also commendable

On the downsides, as was previously mentioned - the kill borders do break the flow, and it's especially frustrating that this behavior isn't communicated. All 4 of my retries were due to to the borders, first - unknowingly then accidentally on jellyfishes

As for potential future improvements, aside from the borders, I'd add some basic randomizer to encounters to keep the players more engaged on subsequent playthroughs. It may be a preference thing, but having the game speed up as the time goes on might also help with the pacing
The Stewarts
08. Apr 2025 · 11:39 UTC
Really great - loved it. The art is cool and the sounds are nice and crunchy. I'd like a dash with invincibility (and also maybe a slow down to make it easier to dodge) and also if the hitbox on your piranha's could be a bit smaller that would be cool. Overall really great though!
dendi_life
08. Apr 2025 · 11:53 UTC
i like this gameplay and music
LDJam user 14887
08. Apr 2025 · 15:38 UTC
very cozy pixel art here, i like it :heart:
levi kingma
08. Apr 2025 · 17:16 UTC
Very satisfying to accumulate more and more piranhas, good job!
mayrakissa
08. Apr 2025 · 17:31 UTC
A great spin on the genre, not shooting spaceships but chomping on tasty fishes :D Solid game!
jtap
08. Apr 2025 · 19:27 UTC
Great game, I really liked the mechanics and it's fun to play. Thank you!
Zaubergurke
08. Apr 2025 · 20:03 UTC
nice graphics and mechanics :)
Dylan Shumway
09. Apr 2025 · 00:37 UTC
Really fun take on a shmup/bullet-hell type game! The music is a super fun groove and the graphics are really cute, which makes it fun to play through. :smiley: I wish it was more clearly communicated that the edge of the screen will deal damage to you (maybe with a vignette?) or that there were just hard boundaries instead, but I still enjoyed my time. Well done! :confetti_ball:
Steven Garberg
09. Apr 2025 · 05:05 UTC
Absolutely loved the old school arcade vibes! Great entry!
Bea
09. Apr 2025 · 05:46 UTC
I really liked this game and played a lot of it! the relation between damage and physical size is something I think about simulating a lot, and I think this game provides a really interesting answer! I did find dying at the edge of the screen a bit frustrating, but that didn't stop me from playing it through to the end. Nice work!
Seiko
09. Apr 2025 · 12:00 UTC
cool game. I really liked the controls and graphics. retro style and beautiful color scheme. enjoyed playing!
Sagamore
09. Apr 2025 · 16:56 UTC
Thanks for the cool experience! The controls are very responsive and the game as a whole is pretty chill. Enjoyed the walkthrough!
chloew
09. Apr 2025 · 19:55 UTC
Audio is great! My only suggestion is maybe adding some iframes right after losing a piranha- I usually lost more than one at once XD
filgru
09. Apr 2025 · 20:31 UTC
Really fun game! I love the idea of collecting piranhas:) Maybe consider adding random level generation to keep things fresh and less repetitive. Great work!!
Gaspar
10. Apr 2025 · 06:53 UTC
Gorgeous pixel art! The gameplay is engaging, though damage sources aren't always clear.
Kamile V.
10. Apr 2025 · 06:54 UTC
haha fun game! I love graphics <333
Wyzal
10. Apr 2025 · 19:52 UTC
Fast time killer, nice. Like the art style. Good job!
Langotriel
10. Apr 2025 · 21:26 UTC
Wonderful visuals and creative enemy design, especially with the swordfish!
Scott R Howell
11. Apr 2025 · 00:36 UTC
Deep Shmup! Love it, good fun, love the sprite work, cool idea on a mix of Feeding Frenzy and R-Type, I like that there is added depth to enemy design than just it hits or it shoots, with stuff liek the sword fish damaging on the front but soft on the back, I do wish you didn't take damage when leaving the screen and instead couldn't leave the screen though.
zjuWindKing
11. Apr 2025 · 06:37 UTC
Great Game!The design of Swordfish is quite clever~
cherrybcake
11. Apr 2025 · 13:31 UTC
Very fun and cozy game, the art is cute and colorful, good job :)
Jacky San
11. Apr 2025 · 19:18 UTC
Perfect arcade game :heart: I love it ! Pixelart & musik is soooo good ! Good job !
silkworm_sweatshop
11. Apr 2025 · 20:00 UTC
Not sure I've seen Fish shmup :fish: :sweat_smile:. Picking up more piranhas as an upgrades was neat. Really nice presentation both visual and sound. It would be cool with a boss at the end but for a jam it's fine. Great job!
LDJam user 261538
12. Apr 2025 · 18:13 UTC
fun game~! I kinda wish the projectiles would hurt the swordfish and that maybe green projectiles could hurt jellyfish because it would give more to do than just dodging. You could then intentionally kite projectiles in the direction of other enemies to clear space for yourself.
Fractal
12. Apr 2025 · 19:59 UTC
Very nice art and very cool concept. The keyboard controls didn’t work at all for me in Chrome (on Linux), but then it worked in Firefox, you may want to fix it as I see several other comments of people who couldn’t use the keyboard either. But apart from that, very well done entry, I wish it would last longer!
paulhocker
12. Apr 2025 · 23:21 UTC
wow what a great game -- simple and the pixel art was perfect -- it would have been nice to have less jelly fish off the bat -- nice job
Mamboman
14. Apr 2025 · 20:38 UTC
I love the art and the music! It's also fun to play. The upside down dead piranhas are hilarious. The jellyfishs always got me though :D
DefinetlyNotSinus
19. Apr 2025 · 08:57 UTC
Super polished experience, I especially like just how coherent the art style looks!